Free health clinic set for two days at Ernest N. Morial Convention Center

New Orleans area residents can take advantage of a two-day free health clinic next week as part of a second national tour by the National Association of Free Clinics, a not-for-profit organization whose mission includes highlighting gaps in primary care coverage for millions of Americans.

Chris Granger / The Times-PicayuneDr. Corey Hebert, left, examines Annette Petty of New Orleans last November at the National Association of Free Clinics at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. The clinic is returning to the city next week.

Doors will be open at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on Aug. 31 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and on Sept. 1 from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. There are plans for 2,000 appointment slots, almost double the number of patients seen at the one-day clinic the group held in New Orleans last year. No one will be charged.

Walk-ups are accepted, but organizers encourage uninsured and under-insured residents across south Louisiana to call 877-236-7617 in advance to prevent waits and to guarantee access. NAFC spokesman Tom Susman said about 500 walk-up patients came to the organization’s Washington, D.C., clinic earlier this month. Some of those had to be turned away, he said.

Besides offering medical services, Susman said the national tour is intended to emphasize the value of primary care and draw attention to the difficulty that some Americans have in getting such care: “A lot of people think that because (federal) health care reform has passed, that this issue is over."

Medical staff at the New Orleans event will offer general medical exams, some lab tests and give patients information about where they can get follow-up care, particularly for chronic conditions. Susman said about 90 percent of the New Orleans clinic patients in 2009 had some kind of chronic medical condition, with high blood pressure and diabetes predominating.

“A number of the people we see have not been to a doctor in five, six years,” Susman said. “The goal is to get people into long-term primary care, not just give them one day of service.”

Susman said next week’s clinic will not include dental or optometry services.

Drs. Corey Hebert of New Orleans and Rani Whitfield of Baton Rouge are serving as medical directors. The clinic still needs medical and non-medical volunteers, from physicians, nurses and medical technicians to people who can help set up on Aug. 30, man check-in tables and perform other logistical tasks. “We will take any volunteers of any skill level,” Susman said.

The staff will offer general medical exams, limited lab tests – including HIV tests – and give all patients information about where they can get follow-up care. As of Tuesday evening, immunizations were not part of the plans, though organizers said they would accept any contributed vaccine supplies.

More information about the clinics, including registration forms for professional and non-medical volunteers, is available at http://www.freeclinics.us/.

The national clinics association advocates for about 1,200 free clinics that served more than 8 million patients last year, a significant increase concurrent with rising unemployment. That includes the Common Ground Health Clinic in New Orleans, which is part of a larger network of primary care clinics that have proliferated in the region since Katrina by using government and private grants. Most of those clinics charge at least nominal fees based on sliding scale of income.

National research suggests that as many as 70 percent of the clientele at free clinics come from homes where at least one adult works full time. Authorities at the New Orleans primary care clinics say their client base reflects similar numbers.

More than a fifth of Louisianians -- nearly all of them adults, given the success of government programs covering children -- have no insurance.